These were the first words out of Damien’s mouth as he tumbled out of the car and started kissing the pavement. He began to mumble ‘thank you’ and ‘sweet, sweet, SAFE ground’ in between molesting the concrete in a very disturbing manner. Shiraz made sure to kick him as she got out of the car.

“My driving wasn’t that bad.” She glared at his backside, which was very elegantly stuck in the air.

I tried not to think about the FOUR near misses where she almost killed us all and just got shakily out of the car, making sure my feet were planted firmly on the ground before daring to take a step forward. After that journey, I swear I will never get in a car will that bint behind the wheel. She drives like a fucking house elf on drugs.

Remy crawled out of the car behind me and joined Damien in the sexual assault of the poor pavement, while Kenzie tottered over to the nearest tree and started hugging it. Do you see what her driving does to us? This is the combination of having her and Lysander in the same confined space, seeing a man in tight pink leather trousers, almost driving off a bridge, having to listen to ‘Dominic the Donkey’ five billion times and noodles. All of that in seven hours? It would have been worth getting splinched while attempting to apparate to miss out on that. It would have been worth going to my family dinner.

Okay, I wouldn’t go so far to say THAT (*twitch*), but still.

“I’m driving us home.” Rose said simply as she got out the car.

The babble of speech following that was a mixture of:

1. “I can get the train back, no problem there.”

2. “I might stay here a few days, you know?”

3. “Rose, sweetie, maybe not.”

4. “This is my tree and I am staying here forever.”

5. “I wonder if there’s any planes leaving Heathrow tomorrow…” and

6. “Fuck no.”

MOST of us try to be subtle about it. Not Lysander. Nope, straight to the point. We left that conversation there, Rose accepting the fact (rather disgruntledly) that she would NOT be the one to drive us home and that Remy was the only one physically capable of getting the car and the rest of us back to Edinburgh, safe and sound.

I think if anybody else drove us home we would all either die on the way or get there mentally unstable and in major need of serious counselling. I mean, I don’t see myself getting over THAT drive for a good few of months, but another road trip with Rose Molly Jennifer Weasley behind the wheel? Could be years.

I might never get over it.

The next few minutes were spent revelling in the glory of having a stable surface beneath our feet, and knowing we’re not going to die in the next thirty seconds. Before Shiraz started whinging about being late for the salon.

You know, this is where you would expect the male members of our group to politely but bluntly excuse themselves to go and do man stuff (grr, monster trucks and blowing things up). Not our crew. Damien, of course, lit up at the mention of ‘Beauty Salon’, you know, being an exceptionally gay best friend and all. Lysander, however, squealed and jumped up and down. Clapping his hands.

“Your boyfriend is so macho.” I said to Shiraz as Lysander cleared his throat and flexed his biceps to regain some manliness.

“Lick your dignity from the ground, love.” Rose said, patting him on the back. Lysander hung his head in shame.

“I’m a disgrace to the male species.” He murmured quietly.

“That you are.” I agreed, grinning.

“Never mind that. We still need to put our shit in our hotel room before getting to the salon. GO GO GOOOOO!” Shiraz then popped the trunk and started throwing dresses at people.

Of course, with my mad Quidditch skills, I dropped my dress on the ground. (For the record, I was actually amazing at Quidditch. GRYFF CHASERZ 4 LYFE BITCHEZZZZ.) Thank Merlin it was in a plastic dress bag. Rose actually screamed and dived for it, lying on the ground next to it and lifting it into the air. “Fucking shit balls, Asiya! Don’t do that!” she said breathlessly, standing up carefully and fondly smoothing the bag before handing it back to me. I don’t see why she’s making such a big deal out of it; she hasn’t even seen the thing yet.

After Shiraz has enlisted the help of Lysander to haul various suitcases out of the boot, we started the (what seemed to be) mile-long trek to the hotel door. “Merlin, Shiraz, what have you got in here?” Lysander grimaced as he hauled her bag up the steps. She stood at the top of the stairs, dress in hand, looking down on the rest of us trying to juggle dress bags, shoe boxes, suitcases, and, in Lysander’s case, brooms as we stumbled up the stairs.

“Just the essentials.” She shrugged.

“What? Like a ton of bricks?”

“Ton of make-up.”

“Isn’t that what a beauty salon is for?” Remy said, the first to reach the top.

“Back-up make-up.”

“THAT RHYMES.”

“Guys, are you sure Kenzie should be lugging all that stuff up the stairs? I’m fairly certain that can’t be healthy for the tiny human growing in her uterus.” Rose said as she sat down at the top of the stairs and blew her hair out of her face. Damien immediately dropped everything he was carrying – thus allowing it to roll back down the stairs – and went to help Kenzie. Aww, what a sweetie.

OH MY MERLIN WILL THESE STAIRS NEVER END? Every time I dragged the bag up one step, I swear to God I lost my balance and fell back two. Every time I looked at the top, Shiraz seemed to be further and further away, looking angrier as each eternity passed. WHY DID I PACK SO MUCH SHIT? I don’t even need half of this! The majority of it is useless crap Shiraz threw in as we were tumbling out of the door at eight in the morning! Note to self: never let Shiraz pack your bag for you. Ever.

What seemed like about four years later, was in actual fact three and a half minutes, we were all standing at the top of the stairs, looking down them and contemplating why it took us so bloody long. In total, there were SEVEN whole steps. SEVEN.

It just goes to show what happens when you come out of Quidditch training for a year. You become a sack of potatoes.

“It’s official. My manliness is gone forever.” Lysander sighed.

And with that, he turned around, tail between his legs, and walked into the hotel.

I sighed. “And there goes our only hope of getting these bags inside in one trip.”

“We’re stupid.” Remy suddenly said.

“I agree.” Kenzie said, pulling the handle out of her wheelie suitcase and starting towards the door.

“No, really.” Remy said, sounding dishevelled. “Every single one of us has a wand in our pockets. Why didn’t we just levitate the stupid things?”

…

FU-

*~*~*~*

We had two rooms in the hotel, three people to be in each. Rose was going to come to the salon with us, and then bail to stay with her parents, probably with her middle finger up behind her as she left and leaving behind the echo of her laughter. I ended up rooming with Damien and Kenzie (Remy lost rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock on who had to share with Lysander and Shiraz.)

“MY BED!” I screeched, jumping on the bed nearest the window.

“SCREW YOU!” Damien stamped his foot and threw his suitcase down next to the middle bed.

Kenzie readily took the one closest to the bathroom, claiming that she ‘was still paranoid about morning sickness’. Which, by the way, is such a bad name. “Morning sickness” my arse. Kenzie has told us stories about how she has been throwing up left, right and centre, all day every day. She has no shame, at all.

I opened my suitcase to explore what wonders my dear friend Shiraz has lovingly packed for my trip.

What the fuck is this shit?

“Damien?”

“Yeah?”

“Remind me never to let Shiraz pack for me on short notice again.” I said as I extracted The Complete Chronicles of Narnia and my kitchen blender out of my bag.

She will die a death. A very deathy death. I will kill her with a deathy death and then she will be very deady dead.

I’m going to stop now. It’s the smell of the salon; it’s going to my head. It smells like… Coconut (I hate coconut) and has a very strong aroma of strawberries (which I love, but the smell here is sickeningly sweet and overpowering) and… is that… Sawdust? OH MY GAWD WHEN THEY’RE DONE FUCKING SHIT UP ON MY FACE THEY’RE GOING TO TAKE ME TO A BACK ROOM TO ‘DO MY HAIR’ AND THEN PUT ME IN A BLENDER AND TURN ME INTO SAWDUST. SHIT. RUN, ASIYA, RUN! WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

…

They MUST be putting some shit into the air that makes you think like a maniac.

I feel ill.

“DIE. SHIRAZ. DIE.” I winced again and yet another twelve billion hairs were yanked out of my eyebrow. I have been here for THREE FUCKING HOURS.

THREE.

THREE HOURS.

HOURS.

THREE OF THEM.

It’s a sad thing when you realise that you have come to point in your life in which you allow your friends to take control of the stupid things you do. For example, a year ago I allowed Kenzie to plan my eighteenth birthday party. That ended with Lysander in St Mungo’s, the Room of Requirement seeing the worst trashing it has ever had, and Randall Higgins circumcising a goat. A few months ago I let Remy take me to a lawyer’s convention (she works in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry). I honestly don’t think I have ever been in the same room as so many boring people in my entire life. Just two weeks ago, Damien and Rose took me out to dinner. We woke up in Tanzania, me covered in feathers and Damien wrapped in bubble wrap, with absolutely no memory of what had happened to night before.

I should stop letting the people around me take control of my life. But when I consider doing that, I realise I would then have less than no social life and would end up a sad old lady with a billion cats.

Not that I have anything against cats, I love cats in fact, it’s just the stereotype that popped into my head when I thought ‘forever alone’.

“How much longer?” I whinged to a smirking Shiraz in the seat next to me, having her legs waxed.

“Forty-five minutes.”

“Fuck you.”

“Back at you.”

“I hate you.”

“I hate you too.”

This is the kind of conversation I frequently have with Shiraz. But we both know we love each other really. Deep down. Somewhere, in the black pit of contempt and bickering we go through every day.

“Shiraz, when are you allowing us access to food?” Rose asked as her stomach gave a particularly loud rumble. There were murmurs of agreement from Kenzie and Remy.

“There is a pack of muffins in my bag. I thought you would have sniffed them out by now, Rose. They are chocolate, after all.”

About three people dived for the bag all at the same time. Shiraz and I watched in mild amusement as the packet of muffins was extracted by four different pairs of hands and then the packaging ripped to shreds as they fought tooth and nail over it.

“How many are there?”

“Fucking hell, you’re heavy now Kenzie.”

“NAILS, REMY. NAILS. IN MY BOOB.”

“Give me the muffins!”

“BOOB, REMY.”

“Mine! I want the chocolate one!”

“They’re all chocolate, smartarse.”

“NAILS. BOOB. REMY.”

“There are six of them.”

“I shotgun two!”

“MY BOOB.”

“There are six muffins, and six of us, dipshit.”

“SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR BOOB, YOU DAFT BINT, YOU’RE FINE.”

“I’M FUCKING BLEEDING.”

I sighed as I watched the scramble of people on the floor of a beauty salon, killing each other over a packet of muffins. You know it’s serious when people start taking boob shots.

“I need new friends.” I shook my head as my stomach grumbled at me. I bent over and whisked the muffins out of Damien’s hands, amongst squeals of protest and followed by a manly cough from Damien in an attempt to regain his dignity.

Aww, so cute. Never going to happen, sweetie.

~A/N~

HI GUYS. Yeah, I know it's been a while, but I've been in a production of Beauty and the Beast in our big theatre in town, so have been in and out of school a lot and shit. I really don't like this chapter, it's very bitty, but it's just because I didn't write it all at once, it's been done in little bits and other bits and completely out of order. Like, I wrote the salon but first, then the car bit and THEN the room bit. It's been a bit strange. Anyway, rate and review please!